New Delhi: The United Nations Human Rights Council on Thursday condemned Iran for its violent crackdown on peaceful protests and extended investigative mandates to probe the alleged violations, with India joining six other countries in voting against the resolution.The resolution was adopted at the Council’s 39th special session by 25 votes in favour, seven against and 14 abstentions. It said the Council “strongly deplores the violent crackdown of peaceful protests”, which it said had resulted in the deaths of thousands of people, including children, injuries to large numbers of civilians, and the arrest of thousands since demonstrations began on December 28, 2025.India voted against the resolution without issuing any statement or explanation of vote.Sources told The Wire that India’s vote was driven by its traditional discomfort with country-specific resolutions at the UNHRC. They also noted that the special session itself was “unwarranted”, given that regular sessions of the Council already exist to address such issues.However, sources acknowledged that India also needs Iran’s goodwill to maintain its interests in the Chabahar port.The US revoked the long-standing sanctions waiver for Chabahar in September 2025, exposing Indian operators to potential penalties. India subsequently received a conditional six-month waiver valid until April 26, this year, and New Delhi is currently “in talks” with Washington over an extension.The Trump administration’s threat on January 12 to impose an additional 25% tariff on any country “doing business” with Iran has added further pressure on India. This comes at a time when India is already dealing with 50 percent US tariffs on many of its exports. New Delhi has been negotiating with Washington to reduce these tariffs and reach a broader trade deal.The port, located on Iran’s southeastern coast, is critical for India’s connectivity to Afghanistan and Central Asia, bypassing Pakistan. The United States is not a member of the Council, with the Trump administration halting all engagement with the UN body.Iran’s Ambassador to India, Mohammad Fathali, publicly thanked the Indian government on social media following the vote. “I extend my sincere gratitude to the Govt. of India for its principled and firm support of I.R. of Iran at the UN_HRC, including opposing an unjust and politically motivated resolution. This stance reflects India’s commitment to justice, multilateralism, and national sovereignty.”This is the first time India has voted against a UNHRC resolution on an investigative body related to Iran. In November 2022, India abstained on the resolution that established the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission, and in April 2024 it again abstained on a resolution extending the mandates of the Fact-Finding Mission and the Special Rapporteur.Sources said those previous abstentions were influenced by other calculations, including the concerns of major groups in the Council at the time.India, especially at the United Nations General Assembly and its Third Committee, has generally voted against the annual country-specific resolution on Iran’s human rights record. The sole recent exception was in April 2024, when it chose to abstain after Iran reportedly made some comments on Jammu and Kashmir. In 2025, India voted against the resolution after Iran assured it would not comment on India’s internal affairs, sources added.European countries led the support for the resolution, with all European Union members on the Council voting in favour, joined by Iceland and the United Kingdom, both co-sponsors. Several Latin American countries, including Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Paraguay, also backed the resolution.Among Asian members, Japan and South Korea voted in favour, while China, India, Indonesia and Pakistan voted against. Iraq opposed the resolution from West Asia, while Egypt, Kuwait and Qatar abstained. African countries were split, with Ghana, Benin and Malawi voting in favour and most others abstaining. No African country voted against.What does the resolution include?The resolution extended the mandate of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran by two years and renewed the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on Iran for one year. It also requested the Fact-Finding Mission to conduct an “urgent investigation” into allegations of recent and ongoing serious human rights violations linked to the protests, including for potential future legal proceedings.It urged the Iranian government to “respect, protect and fulfil its human rights obligations” and to take all necessary measures to stop extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrests and detentions, sexual and gender-based violence, torture and other forms of ill-treatment, including against peaceful protesters. The resolution also called on Iran to “immediately fully restore Internet access”.Iran’s crackdown on protestersThe death toll from the crackdown remains heavily contested. Iran’s Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva, Ali Bahreini, provided an official figure of 3,117 deaths, “of which 2,427 were killed as a direct result of terrorist operations.” Special Rapporteur Mai Sato told the Council that authorities reported over 3,000 deaths including security forces, while “some civil society estimates go up to tens of thousands, though these figures cannot be verified.” She added that “the staggering discrepancy demonstrates how the shutdown has obscured the true scale of events.”UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk told the Council that thousands of people, including children, were killed “in the course of a security crackdown that intensified on 8 January”, during which security forces used live ammunition against demonstrators. He urged Iranian authorities to “reconsider, to pull back, and to end their brutal repression”, calling for the immediate release of all those arbitrarily detained and a moratorium on the death penalty.In her statement, the chair of the Fact-Finding Mission Sara Hossain said the mission had gathered witness accounts and digital material “appearing to show security forces firing lethal ammunition into crowds that did not present an imminent threat to life”. She described scenes at a makeshift morgue in Tehran, where grieving relatives searched for loved ones among “hundreds of body bags piled one on top of another”.According to the mission, around 24,000 protesters may have been detained, including children, journalists and human rights defenders. Sato told the Council that “tens of thousands of individuals, including schoolchildren”, had reportedly been detained nationwide without access to legal counsel or family contact, and that raids had been carried out in hospitals. She said there was information indicating detainees were coerced into making false confessions broadcast on television.She also said authorities were pressuring families to falsely claim deceased relatives were members of the Basij militia allegedly killed by protesters and were demanding payments for the retrieval of bodies, describing these as “cruel practices that compound grief with extortion”.Rejecting the resolution, Bahreini said Iran did not recognise the legitimacy of the special session. He said the sponsors “have never genuinely cared for the human rights of Iranians”, citing Western sanctions and support for Israel as evidence of double standards. While acknowledging that protests initially involved peaceful demonstrations, he claimed they were later transformed into organised violence and terrorist attacks.